The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is an attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 221: The problem was that if Anya started on that path, she knew it was a commitment to stay here for some time.
The problem was that if Anya started on that path, she knew it was a commitment to stay here for some time. Thus far she always assumed she’d leave. She would stay hidden and learn what she needed to, possibly slipping out with the other girls when they left at the end of the coming season.
There was, of course far more than she could learn here in that time. She knew the others thought of her as taking a course of study they created. Despite enjoying learning all about the flora and fauna as well as magic, Anya still deep down thought of it as passing time. She was occupying herself while she stayed hidden and figured out where she could go when she left.
‘With part of the study helping me to figure out where to go,’ she thought.
Even with the others assigning her readings it hadn’t really occurred to her to stay for longer than she needed to.
‘Except that Lord Mathis is still searching and I still haven’t figured out a safe place to go.’
However settling in the suite of rooms hidden deeper in the mountain and setting up the agricultural section so she would have a steady supply of food seemed a bit too permanent. ‘Even the books would seem more settled,’ she thought. Now she had them stacked haphazardly in one of the empty rooms near her. If she relocated they would be put onto the empty shelves she saw so they would be easily accessible and less of a temporary pile.
Everything would look more temporary. She would not be in this small room with limited facilities. She would be in a living space with even out door access to a small area in the warmer months.
‘With a stone basin that looked like the one Marta used.’
She couldn’t deny the space was tempting. It would be like living in a space instead of hiding out in one, even if it was even more hidden. It was just the feeling of permanency that Anya was having a hard time wrapping her head around.
‘The bath does sound good,’ she thought. ‘I’d need a kitchen space and all would be set.’ She suspected that if she looked Anya would find such as space, she just hadn’t taken that much time to inspect the details.
Anya worried her lower lip with her teeth as she thought about it. She planned to leave and had even more or less figured out how to slip out unnoticed, but would she be able to leave with the other girls when they departed? Would it be safe? Would there be a place she could go?
She wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure she wanted to stay long term. ‘What would I do with myself?’ She asked.
Flashes of the library came to mind. ‘Study sure, but to what end?’
In Tyrin she was taught the formulas for getting stains out of cloth because it was expected she would spend at least a portion of her life working in the laundry. She learned to gather the plants, river and sea creatures for food, medicine and sale to help feed and support the family. Of what use could she make of the information she learned here in the outside world?
‘I could work as one of the herbalists,” she thought. The thought was fleeting. None of the herbalists she knew were women, even if they often employed women to gather what they needed.
Ten til Midnight 